3 Geeks and a Law Blog

The legal market consolidated a bit more today in Canada
as DLAPiper LLP announced that Davis LLP will be joining the Swiss verein's North
American arm as its newest member firm in April 2015. The Am Law Daily, summed up the change in…

Okay... it's Friday. It's snowing in Dallas, and it's a bit slow around the office. But, when I saw that Reed Elsevier was going to change its name to RELX, I thought maybe it was a joke to draw attention away from the black/blue vs.…

Image [cc] slworking2
Recently I participated on a panel on the future of the profession for the National Conference of Bar Presidents and walked away thoroughly convinced the profession is doomed.
For those of you unfamiliar with how bar…

Last week, Linden Research changed its policy on skills games in the Second Life® virtual world. Now, game creators and game operators can obtain a license to offer games and to operate games in Second Life. Players, region owners,…

While the virtual reality market seems to be quiet, the augmented reality is starting to grow. With Google Glass and new competitors on the horizon, people are turning to wearable computers. Wearable computers in the form factor of glasses…

New California Law Will Change Video Game and Virtual Worlds Privacy Practice

This past week, on September 23, 2013, California Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 568, legislation enacted to protect minors online. The law is most famous for providing a so-called “Internet eraser” mechanism. The idea of…

In Bucharest, neighborhoods formed their own networks in order to bypass incumbents and meet their own needs. Later, these networks transformed into small businesses.
My understanding is that the state of affairs is a bit different now, but…

This is a really important topic for startups about the risks of having unpaid interns and internships, so I have pasted below the full text of a recent Cooley LLP legal alert. * * * A recent case in the U.S. District Court for the Southern…

Cooley LLP recently released a report on venture financings for 2012. The report provides a summary of data reflecting our experience in venture capital financing terms and trends. Information is taken from transactions in which Cooley served…

Above and Beyond KM

If you ever have the opportunity to hold an off-the-record conversation with law firm knowledge management personnel, ask them if they are delighted with their intranet. Many will confess that they are not. Equally, they will tell you that…

If you ever have the opportunity to hold an off-the-record conversation with law firm knowledge management personnel, ask them if they are delighted with their intranet. Many will confess that they are not. Equally, they will tell you that…

East Asians have just celebrated the lunar new year. While all of them use the Chinese character “yang” to name the animal symbol of the year, some translate yang differently. In Chinese, yang could mean goat, sheep or ram.…

All Your Law Are Belong to Us

By: Wesley Paisley Lately video games are getting a lot of press, in NCAA , IPOs, and now regulation from three foreign trade regulation bodies. The contention is with in-app purchases with free-to-play models. The real issue…

Comcast has recently announced its purchase of the notoriously awful TimeWarner Cable for $45.2 billion dollars. Earlier in January, the D.C. Court of Appeals put the kabosh on the FCC’s proposed net neutrality…

In this first of a two part AlphaTakes video series, Matt Storms discusses the first half of the Series A Preferred Stock term sheet for an emerging technology company. He provides a summary of some of the key terms of the Series A term…

In this AlphaTakes video, you will learn about convertible debt financings for an emerging technology company and the key terms that are typically negotiated in a convertible debt term sheet. You will learn about the financial and procedural…

Apple Briefs

It’s hard to believe that it has been three years since I last updated Apple Briefs. In the past three years we have moved to a larger office, grown our staff to six team members, and served hundreds of great families. Over that time,…

Apple has released quite a few products in the past couple of years. I am loving Final Cut Pro X. And some of the iPhone upgrades have been tremendous. But I don’t think I have been quite as excited about a new product since the iPad was…

I have learned a few things in the days since Steve Jobs passed. First, I really wish I could write like John Gruber, Walter Isaccson, and others.
Second, I have learned just how many people had strong feelings for Steve’s contribution to…

AS-IS: Ecommerce, Internet, Software & Technology Law and Contracts

Follow the link for an article on the startling new importance of design patents. Design patents were formerly something of a backwater of patent law, but, as the article explains, a 125-year-old “sleeper” provision in the law could…

How to Protect Long-Term Investments in Operational Contracts (Full Article)

Consider one of the most difficult issues you’ll ever encounter when negotiating a contract: one party must make a large, long-term investment for the deal to work, but won’t sign the contract unless its investment (and its return on the…

Starting up a business, or entering a new market channel, is never easy. Starting a business on the World Wide Web (the web), or moving an existing “offline” business there, requires not only effort and risk, but also demands new…

“Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) is an international satellite mission to provide next-generation observations of rain and snow worldwide every three hours. NASA and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched the…

Binary Law

Reblogged from Legal Web Watch January 2015 Digital Champion, Martha Lane Fox, first mooted the idea of a single government website back in 2010. Some thought the theory was sound but that delivery would be impossible. Once the project was…

Reblogged from Legal Web Watch November 2014. I ask this because I have been looking into the future for CPD in the two professions. Both are moving away from measuring CPD hours towards systems based on self-certified continuing competence.…

Reblogged from Legal Web Watch September 2014. The early adopters have been getting restless lately. I’m with them. This is not what we signed up for. Alan Jacobs, writing for The New Atlantis, predicts The End of Big Twitter. Twitter…

Call for papers Ebola and the Law Biolaw section of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS)Washington, D.C.Monday, January 5, 2015, 10:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. The 2014 west African outbreak of the Ebola virus is the most severe epidemic…

Victoria Sutton of Texas Tech very kindly put her new book, Reel Bio-Horror: The Things That Keep Us Up at Night, on the Biolaw bookshelf. The book has its own website and a Facebook fan page. It covers the genre of biohorror and…

The Practising Law Institute has very kindly provided Biolaw a copy of its EPA Compliance and Enforcement Answer Book for 2013. Edited by by Adam Sowatzka and Richard E. Glaze, Jr., this volume reviews the full array of laws enforced by the…

Blawg IT

The Frightening Irony The documentary Inventing to Nowhere boils a series of complex questions down into one: Why are we allowing companies that stifle innovation to dictate our country’s innovation strategy? The History The…

The Case of the Monkey Photographer Back in 2011, photographer David Slater found himself in a national park in North Sulawesi, Indonesia, taking pictures of critically endangered crested black macaque monkeys. After taking some pictures of…

Five Years Running For the fifth year in a row, Brett J. Trout has been selected by his peers for inclusion in the annual edition of The Best Lawyers in America®. For 2014, Mr. Trout has been selected for inclusion in the area of Patent…

Blog Law Blog

Covers the legal aspects of blogging. Topics include blog-related intellectual property law, Internet regulation, defamation, and censorship, as well as how blogs are used as evidence and authority in the courts. By Professor Eric E. Johnson.

UK Bans Warns of Criminal Charges for Using Social Media to Discuss 25-Year-Old Soccer Tragedy

TweetIn the United Kingdom, there is a new example of that country’s sometimes surprising limitations on free speech. The UK Attorney General is warning people that they might be held in criminal contempt for using social media to…

TweetProf. Michael Baram of Boston University and I published an op-ed today in the International Business Times: New U.S. Science Commission Should Look At Experiment’s Risk Of Destroying The Earth. The piece concerns the Relativistic…

Tweet Kind of sad to see Adam Savage of Mythbusters as the face of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association – one of the key trade groups lobbying against net neutrality. You’ll never guess who the…

What I Learned in the Last 10 Years Defending BSA -The Software Alliance Audit

I am an intellectual property attorney in Southlake, Texas who has handled more than 230 Business Software Alliance audit matters for small to medium-sized companies. For the last ten years, I have been representing end-user companies…

If your company has received a letter from the BSA | TheSoftware Alliance requesting a software audit, you are probably wondering whether you should cooperate or ignore the request. I have been handling BSA cases for almost a decade…

BSA | The Software Alliance recently announced that it had named Victoria Espinel, who served in the Obama Administration as the first US Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator as its new President and CEO. Ms. Espinel’s prior…

Business + Intellectual Property + Internet Law

From a Rhode Island point of view, this blog covers legal developments in the fields of business law, patent law, trademark law, copyright law, intellectual property law, and gaming law. By John Ottaviani.

It's a bit late for a year-end wrap-up, but better late than never, right? For those who may have missed some of these, here are my picks for some of the more important developments in Cyberspace law that occurred in 2014. This is not…

Last week’s grand opening of the Tilted Barn Brewery in Exeter got me to thinking. The craft beer industry is exploding in Rhode Island. Branding and identification are very important to these companies. They spend a…

Investments in RI Companies Rebound in 4th Quarter, Top $81 Million in 2013

After a slow third quarter, venture capital investments rebounded in the last quarter of 2014, according to the MoneyTree Report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association based on data from Thomson Reuters.Venture…

Odex fails action against PacNet for disclosure of identity of downloader

In what appears to be a straightforward case of licensors of Animeware - ODEX - for illegal downloading of pirated copies by thousands, Odex filed suits against all the local commercial ISPs to obtain the identities of those who downloaded…

Day 1 of State of Play Conference. Interestingly the latest case reported of the synthetic worlds is the case of EROS LLC suing Volkov Catteneo” who broke the sex program’s copy protection and sold unauthorized copies. So naturally…

Finally the long awaited conference has begun. Last night at the opening dinner for participants, meeting all the thought leaders, academics and businesses involved in the building and use of synthetic environments is exciting. There was a…

Cairns Blog

Covers the First Amendment, democracy and design in the digital age. By New York Law School Professor Beth Simone Noveck and members of the First Amendment in the Digital Age Course at Stanford University.

A few days ago I gave a presentation on “Solving Public Problems with Crowdsourcing” for 80 assembled governors of the Russian Federation outside of Moscow at an event on Contemporary Management Technologies. The presentation was…

The Public Administration Select Committee of the UK Parliament issued a Report on Public Engagement in Policymaking calling for “wiki style” approaches to policymaking and creating greater engagement in the workings of…

“Groupy Once More”: J. Richard Hackman on Group Behavior and Performance

This week family and friends of the late Richard Hackman, who passed away in January, gather in Cambridge, Massachusetts to celebrate his life and work. He devoted his career as a social and organizational psychologist to studying what makes…

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday appeared to have put an end to a California’s group nine-year effort to overturn patents on human embryonic stem cells held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF). The court refused to hear…

The San Diego U-T newspaper today reported the first criticism of the $100 billion stem cell/genomics research plan being floated by the former chairman of the California stem cell agency, Bob Klein. The challenge to the proposal came from…

Bob Klein at UC San Diego last weekBradley Fikes/San Diego U-T photoMore details are emerging on the $100 billion, international stem cell/genomics research proposal being offered up by Bob Klein, the first chairman of California’s stem…

Canadian Privacy Law Blog

The disaster of the Nova Scotia cyberbullying law; it's time to go back to the drawing board

I often represent victims of true cyberbullying, including adults whose lives have been turned upside down by malicious online actors, so I am very sympathetic to the nominal goals of Nova Scotia's Cyber-safety Act. But the legislation fails…

Pre-installed adware may be kosher under Canadian anti-spyware provisions of CASL

The Next Web is reporting that Lenovo has been shipping consumer laptops pre-equipped with adware (see: Lenovo Caught Installing Adware On New Computers). This raises an interesting question for Canadians: would something like this be ok…

The Ontario Court of Appeal in Hopkins v. Kay, 2015 ONCA 112 (CanLII) has just ruled that the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA) doesn't preclude common law claims for intrusion upon seclusion. In the decision under appeal,…

Carter Law Firm Blog

Last month Google announced an upcoming change in its terms of service that would ban all pornography from Blogger sites. (Blogger is Google’s blogging platform.) This change would have been retroactive and impacted some users who have…

It’s hard to believe that The Undeniable Tour is less than a month away. At this point I feel like all the pieces are starting to lock into place. I booked my flights and most of my lodging. I’m going to be staying in hostels and…

How much time do you devote each month to your own professional development? I’m serious. When was the last time you took a step back to look at your business as a whole and not just focusing on whatever task is in front of you? I want…

I don't just work on health care from an IT angle; I also sometimes work on payment issues. And in this context it has occurred to me that we have also have information problems. They're a little different from the kind you get in IT, but…

Preliminary Thoughts on the HITECH/HIPAA NPRM: Modifications to the HIPAA Privacy, Security, and Enforcement Rules under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act

The Notice of Proposed Rule Making (“NPRM”) for the proposed new regulations amending the HIPAA regulations as required by HITECH have just been informally published here. The formal publication date in the Federal Register is probably…

Okay, here’s yet another HITECH question: What does it actually *mean* if HITECH BA requirements are both applicable as a matter of law, and required to be incorporated into BACs? Do we have any discretion to vary the BAC language from the…

Department of Education Issues “Model Terms of Service” and Other Guidance on Student Privacy Compliance

On February 26, the U.S. Department of Education issued guidance aimed at assisting schools and school districts when considering whether the use of online educational services and mobile applications complies with student privacy laws. The…

Following President Obama’s announcement last month that the administration would be proposing a consumer privacy bill of rights, the Obama Administration today posted its proposed legislation. Check back here soon for further…

What Will be the Impact of the New EU Data Protection Regulation on the UK’s Freedom of Information Act?

Undoubtedly one of the more mind-bending exemptions to apply under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) is the exemption for personal information (s.40) (although sections 30 and 36 are also up there!). This is partly due to s.…

Just a quick note to say I've started a new blog as preparation for a book I'm doing for the ABA in 2012 -- so most of my blogging energy has shifted over there. Please come by and check it out:
http://www.novojustice.com

Just a quick note to say I've started a new blog as preparation for a book I'm doing for the ABA in 2012 -- so most of my blogging energy has shifted over there. Please come by and check it out:
http://www.novojustice.com Read more »…

Just a quick note to say I've started a new blog as preparation for a book I'm doing for the ABA in 2012 -- so most of my blogging energy has shifted over there. Please come by and check it out:
http://www.novojustice.com Read more »…

Keeping adequate record of your software creation efforts can be very helpful to stave off copyright infringement claims
The post Independent Creation Paper Trail To Fend Off Copyright Suits appeared first on .

Keeping adequate record of your software creation efforts can be very helpful to stave off copyright infringement claimsThe post Independent Creation Paper Trail To Fend Off Copyright Suits appeared first on .

Despite Oracle’s efforts to utilize copyright law to asphyxiate Rimini’s business model, Rimini’s support services appear to have bright days ahead
The post Oracle’s Copyright Victory: An Ephemeral Win appeared first…

CommLawBlog

Covers developments in the entire range of issues addressed by the Federal Communications Commission in its regulation of spectrum-related activities, as well as copyright, trademark, First Amendment and Internet issues. By Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth.

Last month we reported on an FCC order implementing several rule changes dictated by Congress in the STELA Reauthorization Act of 2014. Those changes include the ban on joint negotiation for retransmission consent agreements by any two…

New bills would force the FCC to examine, on an expedited basis, possible Wi-Fi and other unlicensed use of 5.9 GHz band.
As a general rule, the FCC is in the driver’s seat when it comes to spectrum management in the U.S. But that…

TVMLC settlement with SESAC gets the thumbs up from judge; important forms to be sent to participating stations to get the refund process rolling
If you’re a full-power TV operator in the U.S. (or its territories) and you obtained a…

By David Burns
While the FCC's net neutrality order got most of the attention yesterday, the FCC took another major broadband-related action at its February 26 meeting. Over the strenuous objections of incumbent internet service providers…

By Scott R. Flick and Paul A. Cicelski
The FCC voted on net neutrality rules in an open meeting today (that was delayed an hour due to yet more snow in DC), and the highly anticipated vote ran into a few last minute snags. First,…

Microsoft has issued a “hot patch” for Word 2013 that fixes, among other things, a major issue for law firms and other organizations that use lined and numbered pleading paper for their court documents. The issue, as I understand…

In 2009, I wrote a post that explained how to change the case of selected / highlighted text with a keyboard shortcut. (See Changing case (Word, all recent versions).) This new post expands on my earlier article by explaining how to change…

Here’s a general computer tip – obviously not specific to Word or WordPerfect – that I distributed this week at the Department of Justice in Los Angeles. I’ve edited the tip slightly before posting here. People often…

The press reports of today’s oral argument suggest that the Court will find the Arizona state constitutional amendment unconstitutional. The Justices evidently think that the state legislature does have standing and that the…

The Court has just released its orders from the February 27th Conference. There were no cert grants or denials in any of the pending petitions listed below. Some opinions may be released next week. THE COURT’S…

You know a defamation case is going to be a good one when it starts like this: Political debate in the Internet blogosphere can be, and, often is, rude, aggressive, sarcastic, hyperbolic, insulting, caustic and/or vulgar. It is not for…

Copywrite

You may have noticed that posting has been very slow as of late. After seeing that Prof. Paltry is closing down his blog, I am following suit. The reasons for ending the blog are the same as why I have not been blogging much and why Paltry is…

You may have noticed that posting has been very slow as of late. After seeing that Prof. Paltry is closing down his blog, I am following suit. The reasons for ending the blog are the same as why I have not been blogging much and why Paltry is…

Bar exam results are out for July 2008. Congrats to all of my classmates and students. The full list, also available on the Ark. Supreme Court (pdf) web site, follows:
Ables, Jason Keith
68 Kings River Rd. N. Little Rock, AR 72116

Court Technology and Trial Presentation Blawg

Dr. Laurie Kuslansky recently shared a few examples of how trusting friends and family members for litigation advice might be less than optimal (see No Advice is Better Than Bad Advice in Litigation). Although there are many good ways to save…

Overall, I've been satisfied with the iOS mail and calendar apps. They are relatively easy to set up, and offer most of the features you need in a business-level system. So when I noticed the new release by Microsoft of Outlook for iOS, I…

I've often said that when it comes to trial technology, it’s not a question of if it will fail, but rather when it will fail, how bad that failure will be, how long it will take to fix it, and whether anyone else will even notice that…

Included below are my introductory remarks delivered at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Law Libraries on July 23, 2012 as part Program E-1 State Advocacy Strategies: Learning to Connect, Grow and Survive. The material below…

Included below are my introductory remarks delivered at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Law Libraries on July 23, 2012 as part Program E-1 State Advocacy Strategies: Learning to Connect, Grow and Survive. The material below…

The people at The Jury Expert are excited about moving to a new platrorm, Wordpress, where they can incorporate a new look and possibly some new features as well. Below is their e-mail announcing the change and providing links so you can see…

CS-SIS

Smart watches have been touted as the next must-have gadget. With several models available and Apple jumping into the fray this spring, what are they and what can they do?Besides serving as straightforward, traditional watches most of the…

This is the time of year to be thankful that we have the opportunity (or perhaps just inclination) to work with a variety of technologies in law libraries. It can also be a good time to take stock of your current skill development and…

As we start getting into the teaching season, here are few new(ish) apps that might be helpful in creating effective teaching experiences for students. Adobe Presenter 10 Presenter provides a quick and easy-to-use software platform to…

For reasons we will get to in a moment, the State of Missouri charged Robert Metzinger with “making a terroristic threat under [Missouri Revised Statutes] § 574.115(4).” State v. Metzinger, 2015 WL 790463 (Missouri…

After Caryn Aline Nascimento was “convicted of one count of aggravated first-degree theft and one count of computer crime”, she appealed. State v. Nascimento, 2015 WL 465188 (Court of Appeals of Oregon2015). On appeal,…

The 4th Amendment, the Search Warrant, the Network Investigation Technique

After Gary Reibert was charged with “with the receipt and attempted receipt of child pornography (Count I) in violation of 18 U.S.Code § 2252A(a)(2) and (b)(1) and the accessing of a computer in interstate…

Handling Accusations in the Midst of an Increasing Cybercrime Epidemic

Cybercrime presents unique challenges to the legal system, both for alleged offenders and for law enforcement. The laws and regulations regarding certain crimes are often difficult to navigate, especially given the fast pace of web technology…

Three separate cases involving the online solicitation of minors are currently in the court system in Amarillo, Texas, and in Louisa County, Virginia. Undercover police operations in both states were involved in discovering the offenses.
A…

Solicitation Charges Against High School Teacher Shock Small Connecticut Town

If you or someone you love faces charges of soliciting a minor for sex or engaging in cybercrime activity, this heartbreaking case out of Connecticut may resonate with you.
A former student has filed a lawsuit against a local high school…

Cyber Lawyer Blog

Cybersecurity: Stuck Between Advanced Hackers, Government Regulators, and Liability

<u>Cyber attacks occur every second of every day</u>. The frequency and sophistication of the attacks <br>
continues to rise. With the increased sophistication and the proliferation of corporate espionage and nation-state…

In our efforts to identify the authors of defamatory contents targeting our clients, we utilize many methods. Sometimes we issue subpoenas, but that is not all we do. Our Internet law firm stands out for our use of technology to assist…

At this Internet law firm, we are no strangers to copyright litigation. From whether website reviews are copyrightable to defending individuals caught in the RIAA's use of the Department of Justice to do RIAA's litigation in the form of

The Washington Post reports that police in Manassas, Virginia may seek to photograph the erection of a teenage boy accused of possession and manufacturing child pornography. The teenager sent a video of himself to his girlfriend, and her…

Yesterday, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that police must obtain a warrant prior to searching the cell phones of the people they arrest in Riley v. California. In an opinion widely heralded as a resounding victory for privacy in the…

Spring Edition of CCR's Massive Round-Up of New Law Articles on the CFAA, Cybercrime, Privacy, 4th Amendment, Surveillance, and more

Some impressive articles have been published since the last round-up I did in February; if you missed that post, see: Massive round-up of new law articles, covering privacy, Fourth Amendment, GPS, cell site, cybercrime, big data, revenge…

New Jersey recently amended its privacy laws to now require health insurers and care providers that do business in the state to encrypt PHI. The new requirements apply to insurers authorized to issue New Jersey health benefit plans. Such…

Cyberlaw Central

I’ve been busy with the new job, and enjoying all the challenges life has to bring, so I have not posted here in a while. I’d certainly planned to, but something always came up. I have been more active on Twitter than anywhere…

I’ve recently switched law firms, so my contact information has changed. I’m very happy to be with Ladas & Parry LLP as part of their Chicago office. The firm has been around for over 100 years, and has a strong international…

And so it begins… ICANN is delegating its first new domains under its expansion of the gTLD system. Admittedly, these domains are in foreign languages, but that does not diminish the changing nature of these domains upon the landscape.…

As part of its ongoing effort to provide guidance to digital advertisers (including the recent release of the updated digital advertising guidance, “dot.com Disclosures: How to Make Effective Disclosures in Digital Advertising“),…

In an effort to provide clarity on it its revised Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (“Rules”), the FTC recently published a list of Frequently Asked Questions (“FAQs“) with information on how to…

In an effort to provide clarity on it its revised Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (“Rules”), the FTC recently published a list of Frequently Asked Questions (“FAQs“) with information on how to…